Phoenix, Arizona to LAX, California (Day 10 - 7/1/14)

"Hey Luke, eat some of these worms"

After numerous days of American travels, the day of our departure is now upon us. The little anxious butterflies have been kept at bay by the wonders of Arizona but now they erupt in my stomach like big squirming caterpillars - a lifecycle in reverse, a queasy feeling that reflects the strangeness and uncertainty with which I face two weeks in a non-Western country for the first time in my life.

Once or twice, Duck and I have sheepishly spoken of our regret at not staying in America longer, masking our nervousness about Mexico. Over the last eight days we've mentioned our destination to several Americans, yielding a variety of replies ranging from mortified to wildly enthusiastic. It's somewhat comforting that the enthusiastic endorsements come from those who have actually been, whereas all the negative ones come from those who haven't, but still - our worries lay within us, largely unspoken but plain on our faces. 

In hindsight, I now view the naysayers as xenophobes... people with an acute fear of the unknown that has been fed by the media's portrayal of Mexico as a wild and lawless place. I have no doubt that Mexico contains some of the worst crime-stricken areas in the world, but most of the areas that we travelled to are as geographically and philosophically distant from the cartels as parts of Australia are from Indonesia. 

Also in hindsight, I should never have googled the locations we were to visit and then crosschecked them against news stories. Bad idea.

Ho hum!

See ya Phoenix!

The Duck has it in her head that we'll fit in a trip to Phoenix Zoo or the city's botanical gardens before we leave but I have far more realistic (and boring) ideas of what the morning will bring us.

Last night, Duck freaked out when she saw that the date was 7/1/14 - the same day we were to fly out. She thought we had missed our flight. I calmed her down by pointing out that it was past midnight and that we had simply just started the next day.

The morning brings us a rare sleep-in, some overdue showering, and some good old loungin' around. 

Driving the rental car back to the airport is a hair-raising experience all on its own, but the Duck acquits herself with aplomb. As we get into our hire car one last time, track 14 of Josh Pyke plays softly and mournfully. It's the only CD we've listened to on our travels, over and over, and yet I will miss it in the days to come.

Most of today consists of sitting around at Phoenix airport, which is much smaller than I expected. We stress a bit when our domestic flight gets delayed - meaning we have less time to connect to our international flight at LAX. We make it just in time, but only after some wrangling with various flight attendants to confirm that our bag has been transferred from plane to plane.

View from the plane out of Phoenix

As we finally settle down on the plane bound for Mexico City, I listen as the language around us transforms into Spanish. I try to pick words out but most people speak too fast and too soft. The plane climbs into the night air and Duck watches, enraptured, through the window as Los Angeles opens up underneath us like a vast blanket of Christmas lights.

She turns to me, her eyes as big as saucers, "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen".

Wendy's; one of America's many fast food chains

Foods we ate in Ahhhhh!merica:

Breakfast

• Biscuits in sausage gravy
• Waffles (strawberry, blueberry, original)
• Bagels
• Bananas
• Whole egges
• Breakfast burrito
• Bacon (crunchier, thinner, oilier)
• Choc-chip and blueberry muffins

Lunch and Dinner

• Carls Jr.
• Denny's
• Hogan Restaurant
• Wendy's
• Jack-in-the-Box
• Blue Coffee Pot
• San Diego Pizza
• Mexican food at the Zoo
• Logan's Roadhouse
• Subway
• Cameron Trading Post 
• Old Town Mexican restaurant in Sand Diego

For Real

Snacks

• Bugels
• Lays
• Jalapeno white chocolate
• Mexican stone/chili chocolate
• Cheese spice larvets
• Reese's Pieces
• Code Red
• Root Beer
• Ginger-Cola
• Frybread (lots of it)
• Cheese-chili pistachio nuts
• Peanut-filled cheddar crisps
• Cherry lollipop

Camp Verde to Phoenix, Arizona (Day 9 - 6/1/14)

Williams, a town on old Route 66

Another day in the South-West, another set of ruins. Duck's foot isn't great but she's resolute in her determination to avoid a trip to the doctor's, so we limp our way to Montezuma's Castle - Camp Verde's most well-known attraction. It's an impressive pueblo, but is neither a castle nor connected to the historical Aztec emperor Montezuma. Unlike previous pueblos we've visited, this complex still retains its outer mud casing - looking much more as it would have at the height of its occupation by medieval Native Americans. While observing the pueblo we sight two large hawks wheeling over and over in the sky above us, their high cries echoing against the cliff face as they scout for prey.

Montezuma's Castle

With some time to kill we decide to head back north to the town of Williams. It's a 'historic Route 66' town, with nearly every shop, diner and trading post adorned with the famous double-digits and 1950s nostalgia. I almost buy some leather suspenders but then realise that it's something I could buy at home and is therefore something I don't actually need (NOTE: Three years later, I have still not bought any such item, thereby confirming that I did indeed not need them). The real purpose of our visit is to check out Bearizona, a small cage-free drive-through animal park. It turns out to be a real winner, and as it's a Monday in America (and school is in session) we pretty much have the place to ourselves - with wolves, bison and black bears all strutting their stuff around our car. I'm a self-confessed animal nut, and as we're in the United States I really wanted to see the local wildlife. So I was excited to get up close with active and cage-free beavers, river otters, badgers, ringtail civet-cats, and peccaries. Animals I've never gotten to see before (partially because most people just aren't interested in seeing them, so zoos don't bother with them). It's a real box-ticker of an experience for me.

Williams

Up close and personal with a wolf

Beaver!

A rare white bison

An awesome tarantula

A Bighorn Sheep

A few hours drive back south and we finally hit Phoenix. I can't really say much as we get into the city pretty late. There was a decent amount of traffic, and we decide we need to eat a steak as it's our last night in America and we haven't partaken in a steakhouse yet. Before getting to Phoenix we call into Black Canyon City to see if we can find a feed. A chance encounter in a gas station leads to a hearty recommendation for a Phoenix steakhouse called Logan's Roadhouse. What did I say earlier in these journal entries? Americans are so friendly and helpful! The gas station clerk laughed and asked us to take her with us and even talked the Duck out of buying an ice cream off her so that our appetite for steak wasn't ruined.

Logan's Roadhouse really hits the spot. The steak is easily in my Top 3 Steaks of All Time. Every bite is a juicy taste of bovine heaven.

[Incidentally, the other two best steaks I've ever had were a steak from a surf club in Gosford, and a filet mignon from Osso's in Penrith].

The Roadhouse itself (whilst probably a chain) has a great American atmosphere - complete with loud country music and tin buckets full of unshelled peanuts. The place also makes me feel tough in my Australian-ness - of the four beers they have on tap, only one isn't a light beer!

Steak house yo!

It's almost about 9:30 PM when we finally reach our hotel (a delay partially caused by an impromptu visit to a Barnes and Noble bookstore... it's fitting that we check out a huge bookstore on our honeymoon as the Duck and I first met while working for a bookstore back home in Western Sydney). The desk jockey in the hotel is quite stern and unhelpful, and all they have left is a room with two double beds. Not the most romantic of rooms, but I can't say I expected much from Phoenix.

This chocolate was great

In our visit to America we saw somewhere between 10-15 towns and cities, and the most memorable and real places were often the smallest and least showy. The big cities, whilst famous, are impersonal, crass and tacky in their commercialism - a thousand bright billboards pushing a thousand fast food chains. It's places like Tuba City and the highway trading posts that I'll remember as the 'real' America - places where people were just happy to chat to us, places where we could experience the country's rich history firsthand; see man-made structures three to four times older than Australia's oldest buildings and get lost in the eye of God while connecting with Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and Meteor Crater.

A glimpse of the car's odometer reveals that we've traversed over 1000 miles despite remaining mostly in Arizona. I think I really like that, it's like we've only sunk our teeth into this part of America, but we've also chewed it enough to swallow it. I just hope we don't poop it all out in Mexico.

American :)

A peccary, a relative of the pig, also known as the Javelina in Arizona

Tuba City and Camp Verde, Arizona (Day 8 - 5/1/14)

Meteor Crater. To give you an idea of scale, 12 football fields would fit into it. Another great photo by the Duck

It was very hard saying goodbye to May and Floyd. They have treated us so nicely, and want us to stay longer, but we must move on. Three days ago I viewed the visit with some apprehension, but after meeting May I soon came to see her as a comforting presence, always listening and always welcoming. Floyd is a quietly dignified and warm leader, living modestly in the centre of Tuba City and always ready to share, teach, and learn. The sheer wealth of knowledge and wisdom that flowed forth from Floyd over the last few days has been invaluable, and his candid insights into the scandals and triumphs of the Navajo Nation's political system has given me a unique perspective on Arizona's history.

After a breakfast at the Hogan Restaurant, and a packed lunch gifted to us from May, we depart Tuba City for what will be the last time. I feel a little sad to be leaving. 

On our way through the neighbourhood we almost run afoul of a lone bull on the kerbside, and the Duck decides to head up the hill to another part of Tuba City to look in on the family she lodged with two years earlier. The visit is very short; after a brief moment of confusion the lady remembers Duck's name and there is an awkward exchange of pleasantries before we decide to bail.

Streets of Tuba City

Our plan is to head down to Phoenix over the course of the next two days. New Mexico is unfortunately a little too far but we decide to look in on the Wupatki National Park on the way back south. It's another amazing sight in a state that seems to have an endless diversity of habitats, and we drift through blue-green savannah crowned with more remarkably preserved Native American pueblos. What's most amazing about this location though is that very few other people are in the park, which lends the ruins a stoic solitude. I keep hoping some Pronghorn Antelope will appear on the horizon, but some douchebags turn up with a dog instead (despite a prominent sign outlawing the presence of canines).

Wupatki is a national park with several ruins from ancient pueblo peoples, notably the Anasazi and Sinagua

You can literally walk through these ruins, the area was full of solitude and history. It's estimated that these structures date from 500 AD.

There's no filter on this photo, the grass really is this colour.

We explore four separate pueblos throughout the National Park, and stand within the boundaries of a reconstructed Anasazi ball court. I try to imagine what it would have been like 800 years ago, with tribespeople competing within the semi-sunken stonewalled oval while others cheered and watched on. It's such a mysterious and vague history, I can't help but feel its magnetic pull. 

Snowmen like these could be seen alongside the road everywhere

Next we drive on to the Sunset Crater, a volcanic ash-strewn forest currently frozen over with large swathes of ice. Duck seems to get extra excited at revisiting this location (she went here on her first visit to America), and after a few minutes of walking along its paths her girlish enthusiasm becomes a little too much... her foot catches on a knob of volcanic rock and she falls over in a big way, grazing her knee and spraining her ankle. She isn't in a good way, although this doesn't stop her from exploring further... the Duck just can't be told!

Sunset Crater erupted just over 1000 years ago, leaving a 10 kilometre circumference of blackened lava flow

[NOTE: A whole month later, upon returning to Australia, the Duck finally consented to letting a doctor examine her still aching ankle. X-Rays revealed that it did indeed break in at least two places at this exact point in time back in Arizona. I can tell you that, even though she had walked on it for a whole month while carrying heavy baggage and had also returned to playing hockey once we arrived back in Australia, her complaints about said injury increased by several hundred percent once she learned that it was actually a break.]

[ADDITIONAL NOTE: At the time of transferring this journal entry to this blog, nearly 3 years after our trip, the Duck has broken this exact same ankle again by tripping over while walking outdoors. She is currently hobbling around our house on crutches due to sustaining several avulsion fractures.] 

Next stop, Route 66! The highway is not called this anymore, but all the service stations and road-stops still milk this 'historical' cross-country route for a few hard-won dollars. The landscape changes once more as we head east, becoming incredibly flat and featureless. We pass a ghost town here, a watching Bald Eagle there, and eventually find our next destination - Meteor Crater Road. As we drive down this lonely turn-off we keep our eyes peeled for the famous 50 000 year old meteor crater. I scan the horizon for evidence of it before realising with a shock that it's much closer than I assumed, so large in fact that it looks like like the sawn-off bottom of a mountain.

Brochure, presumably created around the same time the meteor struck

Postcard. Ditto.

After visiting several ancient ruins and natural wonders for next to nothing, it seems strange to pay to see a crater, but it transpires that this attraction has a lot more clout than most. Heavily staffed and featuring a tech-heavy museum about the nature of meteors, it turns out that the creatively named 'Meteor Crater' is famous for being the first proven meteor-created crater, and has been used extensively by NASA astronauts over the years for training purposes. The strike-zone is yet another gobsmacking sight on our American journey; large enough to house 12 American football fields, and humbling in its sheer depth and width.

By the time we finish with the crater it's starting to get late so we decided to stop about halfway to Phoenix, and return to Camp Verde.

The Duck made me take this photo. Between tears and sobs, she snapped 'Quick, take a photo of me!' In my defense, I really did not want to do this!

Guest Diary Entry from the Duck:

What you are about to read is 100% true and may disturb some readers. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out, the clouds were hiding and there was a sharp winter snap in the air. Duck decided to take her beloved husband to an amazing outlook where he could visualise the lava flowing, cutting through the rolling mountains and destroying everything in its path. Duck thought that her husband would really enjoy this but to her surprise it only enraged him. He was so furious; he couldn't understand why she was blessed with the skill of finding awesome places and driving the American way, and his anger slowly boiled up inside of him until his body could no longer contain it and he erupted like the very volcano they were looking at... his eruption could be heard from miles away and took the form of utmost pain for the Duck.

The Duck, skipping along the path gleefully while squirrels danced around her and birds merrily chirped in harmony, was about to turn around to proclaim her undying love for her husband when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, him raising his arm and using excessive brute force to knock her down. [ED: This most definitely did NOT happen] What he didn't realise was that whilst the Duck was falling she was scrambling to keep balance, so he snapped off a branch from a nearby Alligator Oak and placed it directly in front of her. She was able to counteract his initial shove, but at the last minute rolled her ankle on the discarded tree branch, catapulting her directly down into the broken shards of lava.  

The Duck wept and wept and all the squirrels stopped dancing and the birds stopped chirping and the world for her seemed to stand still. With all her crying, her husband realised she was only trying to let him experience what pleasures she had already seen, and he wished he could take all his mean action back. He promised he would never tell her the truth, and instead be grateful for everything she brought to the relationship. When the Duck quizzed him, and pointed out that she saw him push her, her husband swore black and blue (the colour of her knee) that he tried to catch her before she fell, mostly definitely not pushing her!

And so the two continued on their adventure together.  

Grand Canyon and Flagstaff, Arizona (Day 7 - 4/1/14)

This photo, as are a great deal of the photos, taken by the Duck. It's an abandoned stall in the Navajo Nation.

Today is our chaperone day, with May and Floyd taking us out to see some of the other local sights we have yet to experience. We start with a big breakfast of pancakes, homemade maple syrup, bacon, and fruit - which Floyd precedes with a prayer in Navajo (followed with an English translation for our benefit).

I am not religious, but I could not help but feel a certain reverence in the presence of this ancient, half-whispered language... words so distant from our own in every way that they carry a heavy presence. It's easy to understand why it's such a famous language. It's at once sibilant, complicated, and beautifully gentle; the words offer a window into Navajo culture itself.

Before we set off, the Duck and I duck out to see the local Navajo museum so Floyd can run some errands. Unfortunately, the cultural centre is closed in winter but we get into the gift shop and a small museum dedicated to the Navajo Code Talkers. The story of these soldiers is quite amazing, though I won't go into detail here as it can be easily looked up if you have a computer/iPhone and know how to spell 'wikipedia' or 'google'.

A picture from the Code Talkers museum at Tuba City

Oh, what the heck, here's a direct link to one of the best websites on the matter - Navajo Code Talkers.

After the museum we go into Tuba City's sole internet cafe to check on how my sister has been doing back home in Australia looking after our house and rabbit. Pretty soon it's time to return to May's place, but the Duck and I have a bit of a snapping session over a clash in our schedules. It's only the second time so far that we've had any kind of disagreement on our trip, and it doesn't last more than five minutes as we both quickly realise that it's best to just forget our arguing and move on. You're only in America once!

May and Floyd find great humour in my fear of heights, and joke about booking a plane ride over the canyon for me. As is usual in these cases, I try to laugh along but secretly worry that there might be some truth to their jokes.

On the way out of Tuba City we take a diversion to some dinosaur tracks. This area is a rocky plain made up of prehistoric clay, red and shale-like, and very much the picture of Mars. Large shelves of rock show the indentation of dinosaur tracks - ranging from little bird-dinosaurs to huge raptor-like footprints twice the size of my feet.

I jump from print to print, imagining the huge dinosaur as it loped across Jurassic Arizona in search of prey. The Duck hisses through clenched teeth for me to get out of the tracks, but there are so many of them around that it's impossible not to walk over them.

The four of us wander off in different directions, exploring the plain in it's eerie quietness. On our way back tot he car we find huge dollops of fossilised poop, and the half-exposed ribcage of an actual dinosaur. It astonishes me that this stuff is just out here for anyone to come see. Floyd tells me stories of vandalism and exploitation from the last few decades, how dinosaur eggs were sold off on the roadside by teenagers looking to make a quick buck. Much of the area has been stripped bare, leaving behind the tracks and a few sorry-looking stalls specialising in jewellery, the operators of which also offer guided tours for $10. Only as recently as a year ago, paleontologists unearthed and removed an entire skeleton.

The Duck inspects some Dino-poop.

An hour later we are almost at the Grand Canyon. I had let it be known that this natural wonder was not really on my radar due to my fear of heights, but May and Floyd could not imagine me leaving without seeing it. I protest many times but they laugh it off. On our way in we stop by the Little Colorado River Gorge, a lesser but nonetheless still impressive canyon that a man recently tightrope-walked over. The apparent appeal of this canyon is that it isn't even remotely touristy and is therefore very easy to access. Too easy if you ask me. I  huddle in the car while Duck, May and Floyd stand at the fenceless edge, each howling gust of wind sending knife wounds of fear into my heart and stomach as the Duck teeters way too close to the edge, snapping away on her iPhone. I am not very happy with her when she comes back, and the guilt is written all over her cheeky face. Floyd then tells us a story about a shepherd firing warning shots at a coyote, scaring the animal off the edge of the cliff. The wind was so strong that it swept the coyote back up onto the cliff top, where it promptly died of a heart attack. This story does little to neutralise my fear and worry.

Duck's picture of the Little Colorado River Gorge

You know, I gnash my teeth a lot over heights, but I'm very glad that May and Floyd took me to the Grand Canyon. I've heard people say that it's nothing more than a big hole in the ground but I actually found it quite a transcendental experience. I'm not spiritual in the slightest but if something was to move me to my inner core in a way that struck awe into the very fibres of my being - and this did - then that's the closest I will ever get to religion. I find religion in natural wonders like the Grand Canyon. The sight of this (and Monument Valley yesterday) live up to the hype and I feel so tiny and enraptured by these gargantuan formations.

Photos don't do it justice

This is as close as my photos of the Grand Canyon got. It was way too high for me to get any closer to that railing!

And then we go from the natural beauty of the canyon to the crassness of the National Park businesses.

I wasn't feeling the best. Don't know if it was dehydration or all the new foods or just exhaustion. I thought I would buy a bottle of water, but neither the gift shop nor restaurant nor general store sold bottles of water. The last of these, the general store, had a huge variety of soft drinks, juices, energy drinks and even alcohol, so I was really baffled. The shop clerk tells me that bottled water is banned inside the National Park and that I can only buy water from them by the gallon.

"Why?" I ask.

"Environmental reasons," she says smugly, looking at me like I was somehow being insensitive.

"But why is bottle water banned and not this?" I hold up my freshly-acquired blue-flavoured Powerade.

She laughs nervously, "Yeah, I know..."

Awkward pause.

"But why?" I'm being serious, I actually do want to know.

"Seventy per cent of the rubbish in the National Park was water bottles".

So, basically, you can't be trusted with water so you don't get any. Here, have an environmentally-friendly soft drink from the trillion dollar Coca Cola company, who we wouldn't dare deny any revenue.

Next stop was Grand Canyon Village, a cluster of tourist buildings with an IMAX theatre. May was determined to give me the most authentic Grand Canyon experience I could get in lieu of my inability to get close to the railing back in the National Park. The movie ran for half an hour and gave a brief dramatised history of the Canyon and its relationship with various peoples over time. It included some breathtaking helicopter and white-water raft perspective shots, and was very informative and spectacular, but tiredness was really starting to push me around and by the end I was absolutely ready to drop.

We then drove to Flagstaff.


As the sun set, the immense and snowcapped sacred mountain of Doc'o'slii rose to our left. The sun cast unearthly red shadows across its face while Floyd told us of Flagstaff's controversial practice of showering the mountain with artificial snow to encourage skiing (from the indigenous perspective, it would be a bit like throwing glitter all over Uluru, or skateboarding on the Australian War Memorial). The Ponderosa pine forest, equally carpeted in snow, shepherds us along the highway, and every half a kilometre or so we see pulled-over cars and families discovering the snow for themselves. Left behind snowmen face the road from the forest like happy sentinels of winter cheer.

The English name for Doc'o'slii: 'The San Francisco Peaks'

Upon arriving in the city of Flagstaff I note its more affluent nature; the large triangular-roofed houses, European-styled store buildings, and assorted successful business form a very obvious disparity with the sparse industry back in the Reservation. We eat more Mexican food and Floyd tells us more about the area's colourful history - tales of Mormon pioneers, conflict with the local tribes (Navajo, Hopi, Utes, Yavapei, Havesu, etc.), and his own family history. Both he and May are such an invaluable source of historical knowledge; they know so much about their land and people that it's impossible to dispute their connection to this country. It's a big contrast to the ignorance of most white people both here and back in Australia when it comes to local histories.

So I saw quite a lot today. My most memorable thing about the day though would be the car ride back to Tuba City from Flagstaff. Yes, I saw dinosaur tracks and the Grand Canyon and the Duck scared the absolute stuffing out of me on that cliff top, but the real highlight was May teaching me a Navajo song that her school children sing each morning. We sing in the car until I memorised it, and I've sung it regularly for the past three years since. Floyd seemed happy that I could sing it, and May said that being able to sing in the Navajo language means that I am blessed.

I don't really know what to say.

"Thanks".

I tell them about my broken collar bone (an ongoing and unhealed break that had been going for six months at this point) and May admonishes me for injuring myself in Australia. She says that she would have used a Navajo remedy on me, wrapping my shoulder in the sinews and tendons of a deer. She clucks and tells me that she should have been there when the break happened. Maybe she should have been. Their generosity to the Duck and myself has been so great that no amount of thanks can do it justice. They've fed us, given us a bed, shown us around, and treated us so warmly despite the fact they'd never met me before (and Duck had only previously met May).
 

Our stay with them has been really special.

Tuba City, Arizona, and Monument Valley, Utah (Day 6 - 3/1/14)

Monument Valley. Hi-ho silver!

Today we take a drive around the 'Grand Circle' - a large area across four American states that encompasses many natural attractions. The idea is to see Monument Valley and maybe something else, but the Duck's ambition ends up taking us on a 300-350 mile round trip. 

The first goal is to cross over into Utah and see Monument Valley. On the way out we pass through a lot of Navajo country and witness firsthand the impoverished conditions some of the people live in. Small hogans and caravan-sized boxes dot the cold, dry landscape in random places alongside the highway, many without water or electricity. 

The hogan, a hexagonal-shaped building, is the traditional style of home for the Navajo. There are two different kinds - one for men and one for women.

Floyd later explains to me that a great portion of Navajo land was 'frozen' by the government between 1969 and 2007, meaning that repairs and development were not allowed for a very long time. The U.S. Government in 1969 had decided to do this in the hope of forcing the Navajo and Hopi tribes to resolve their internal land disputes, but it didn't work out and a lot of Navajo families (and presumably Hopi ones too) have been suffering for a long time as a result. Compensation is currently being sought by the Tribal Council but the current government hasn't been very receptive to this idea.

Monument Valley is my favourite thing about the trip so far. Nothing prepares me for the sheer majesty of these huge red monoliths (called buttes - something I learned today). Looking down on the valley gives me the exact shot used in the Doctor Who episode The Impossible Astronaut and also transports me to a handful of westerns. I even stand in the footsteps of the great John Wayne; the Duke liked to observe the valley from this exact spot and filmed some of his most famous films amongst the god-hewn structures in this rusty red landscape.

Abandoned or closed Indian jewellery store outside Monument Valley.

Monument Valley - panorama shot.

We drive back into Arizona and the Duck decides to take me to a Navajo diner called the Blue Coffee Pot, a place she had been to with her Navajo chaperone two years earlier.

This time, though, it's just me and her - two very white Australians in an all-Navajo restaurant.

Stepping into the diner gets us more than a few stares from the Navajo staff and customers, and I have to admit that I did not feel very welcome. This could very well just be racial paranoia, but it gives me an unexpected insight into racially-based discomfort nonetheless. It's hardly comparable to the hardship experienced by minorities the world over, and we tough it out and enjoy our lunch the best we can, despite the staring.

Hungry Jacks in Navajo country, note the hogan in the foreground.

From here we drive into a national park to see the the National Navajo Monument - a series of trails that lead to lookouts overseeing a heavily forested canyon. The snow is thick and, this time, is soft enough for a snowball fight. Despite my pleas to the contrary, the Duck takes great delight in showering me in ice - the crisp snow sharply dusting my face and filling the pockets and collar of my hooded jumper.

The Navajo Monument - the ancient pueblo can be glimpsed at the base of the arch.

At the lookout we see down into the canyon where a huge natural alcove shelters a perfectly preserved Navajo pueblo - far bigger and less eroded than the Hopi ones we saw at Sedona. Such is the remarkable state of these ruins that I can almost see how they were in the 13th century - peopled and vibrant with life, a cliffside community in equilibrium with the American environment.

As the sun sets we race to Antelope Point, a strange red rock beach on the Colorado River. It's getting cold and dark by this point so there is no chance of a swim - though Duck picked up what she thought was a shell before I help her identify it as animal bones, prompting her to drop the dangling vertebrae in disgust.

After the day's 10 hours of travelling we meet May and Floyd back at the Cameron Trading Post (15 minutes past Tuba City) for the restaurant's famous Navajo Tacos. This is basically like a big soft taco, only with Navajo frybread used to wrap up the meat and salad. It's delicious but also extremely filling. We look around the Trading Post afterwards, and Floyd is surprised to discover that the store is selling a buckskin that he tanned himself (he recognises the secret trademarks he put into it).

A Navajo taco. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of one because it was too delicious not to eat straight away. This pic is from eatingtheworld.wordpress.com

Later, when we get back to Tuba City, I speak to Floyd at great length about politics, mainly the differences between Australia's and America's political systems, and he fills me in on the ongoing political struggles of the Navajo nation, as well as the decreasing use of the Navajo language and customs among the younger generation. He also speaks about his experiences in the Tribal Council, including some explosive stories about the Indian Rights Movement, as well as a corruption scandal that saw the most influential members of the council imprisoned. At this point I am still only aware of Floyd's occupation as being something to do with politics, but as we ate back at the Cameron Trading Post the Duck and I noticed two young Navajo men who came over to Floyd to pay their respects to him. They call him 'sir' and seem a bit chuffed that he speaks back to them in such a friendly manner. It is at this point that I realised Floyd is kind of a big deal within his community.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Earlier today we drove on Floyd's Road. It's not called that, but it's a road that he fought very hard for - a replacement highway for a collapsed road that now diverts a lot of traffic through Navajo communities. He and May speak so fondly of it, so the Duck made sure that we drove along it on our travels today. We take roads for granted, but how often do you get to meet someone who was instrumental in the construction of one, and then get to drive along said road? Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but I get a big kick out of that.

The Duck in Monument Valley.

Buttes and snow

Navajo in ceremonial mask.

Sedona and Tuba City (Day 5 - 2/1/14)

Hopi petraglyphs at Sedona

Sedona is such an amazing-looking place that you can almost forget the heavy sheen of tourism that coats it like an obscene varnish. The rock formations that surround this desert holiday village look like the bizarre, misshapen surface of an alien planet in a 1950s pulp sci-fi film: all curvy red columns and blond overhangs. We take a tour in a pink jeep to see some Hopi pueblos (ruins from the 13th century). It's a bumpy ride that jolts my broken shoulder a bit but is still a whole lot of fun.

Sedona - town of the desert

Our guide is an amateur anthropologist and avid hiker who slowly reveals to us over the course of 3 hours the full gamut of his personality. He recommends a restaurant that serves elk and bison meat but then later tells us he is a vegan. He also disputes the naming conventions used by scientists when classifying Native American cultures, lectures us about the pointlessness of Western medicine, and tells us that he hasn't "travelled much" before listing several other countries that he's been to. We also learn that he is divorced, spent 4 years in the navy, and was born in Texas.

It's interesting how much of a person's life can be distilled into just 3 hours; the contradictions in a personality and the passions that form an identity. I couldn't even tell you this guy's name, but we got to know something about him, and about the Hopi ruins too - crumbling stone edifices built into the high shelters provided by the intimidating red rock formations.

This Hopi ruins are about 700-800 years old.

Duck and I have a late lunch at a high end 'cowboy' restaurant (yeah, the one the guide recommended to us) and we try bison and rattlesnake meat. The bison tastes just like beef, but the rattlesnake is really nice - a dry combination of fish and chicken. We also eat delicious fries made from prickly pear cactus.  

By late afternoon it's time for us to move on and head up to the Navajo Reservation to stay with the Duck's friend, May, a school teacher. Two years ago, the Duck did some volunteer work at a Navajo boarding school and made friends with this teacher. They've been in communication via email since then, like pen-pals, leading us to the main purpose of our visit to Arizona. The main township on the Reservation is called Tuba City (despite me asking the Duck over and over again - each time as if I hadn't asked before - I couldn't get an answer why the town was called this). Duck warns me not to mention eating rattlesnake as the Navajo regard all snakes as taboo.

Heading to Tuba City we find ourselves driving at an increased elevation. It kind of sneaks up on us as it doesn't involve any more clifftop driving. The plateau in the north of Arizona is 12 000 feet above sea level, something we notice immediately in the sharp decrease in temperature and the hard deposit of snow that law heaped upon the landscape like Magic Ice topping.

We stop at a gas station and run at the snow, both kicking at it in excitement, hoping for it to powder the air like a fluffy white explosion of frost. The flannel-jacketed guy in the pick-up truck parked next to us looks at us like we're the biggest morons in the world as our feet connect with solid rock-hard ice. OW! There's no powdery softness like on TV - it's pure frozen, dirty, rainwater ice. 

After the the sun begins to set the plateau around us is thrown into a beautiful half-light, huge golden shadows falls over the pine-dotted, snow-capped mountains on either side. Duck begins to worry about driving on the Reservation at night, something that she had been warned against as there can be drunk drivers and such, plus we are a very small white minority in a community that harbours a justified resent towards white folk. It's okay though, a sighting of a Navajo police car helps assuage her anxiety.

 

Tuba City Trading Post, 145 years old and still trading.

We meet May at the Hogan Restaurant, a Navajo venue that serves local dishes as well as American and Mexican food, and named after the traditional hexagon-shaped hogans that some Navajos still live in. I order the most Navajo dish I can find: roast beef on fry bread with chilli and beans. May asks me what other foods we have been trying.

What do you think comes out of my big fat stupid mouth?

"Rattlesnake".

The Duck jabs me hard in the side and glares at me, and I suddenly realise my faux pas. I could have crawled right back into myself like a snail into its shell.

May doesn't seem outwardly offended but I quickly move on and talk about something else, sensing a certain iciness in my mistake. I am so embarrassed. 

After dinner we go to May's house and we meet her husband, Floyd, who is an active member of the Navajo community in a political capacity. Much later I find out that he is actually the President of his Chapter, but he is far too humble and polite to tell us this outright. We chat for a bit and he tells me about tanning, which he does whenever he gets the time - mainly turning deer into buckskins, a skill that has been passed down to him through his family. We are warned to lock our car due to hooligans who walk the streets looking for opportunities, but aside from that all is well. The house is very nice - a homely mix of Navajo artefacts, home-made skins, and cosy furnishings.

Oh, and theirs' is the first normal toilet I've seen since coming to America.

The Seal of the Navajo Nation

This is my only photo of Camp Verde (I think). The huge cut-out of the figure playing a flute is Kokopelli, a trickster god of the Hopi, Navajo, Zuni and other Southwestern peoples.